A Spoonful of Sugar Helps You Solve A Murder Case

(#17) Watch 25 Classic Movies

1.   One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
2.   A Streetcar Named Desire
3.   It's a Wonderful Life
4.   Some Like it Hot
5.   The Terminator
6.   Terminator 2: Judgement Day
7.   The Princess Bride
8.   Ben-Hur
9.   Ferris Bueller's Day Off 
10. Sixteen Candles
11. Blade Runner
12. The Natural
13. Chariots of Fire
14. The Graduate
15. Cool Hand Luke
16. Casablanca
17. Enter the Dragon
18. Citizen Kane

19. The Bridges of Madison County

20. Charade

21. Back to the Future

22. Mary Poppins

23. Murder on the Orient Express

Mary Poppins:

After about 8 movies in a week, my exhausted brain was relieved to watch a move made for children. However I was outraged that instead of the usual 90-minute Disney time frame, this movie like all the others was over two hours long. 

I adored this movie. Of course. I loved Julie Andrews and that Mary was much more sassy than I imagined her being. Dick Van Dyke was incredible as Bert- so energetic and lively, not to mention a great dancer. 

And can we talk about the special effects for a second? I mean this was 1964! How did they do some of these things?

I also thought the interaction between the live characters and the cartoons was very seamless. But then again it is Disney so we should expect the best. 

Probably the most memorable thing about this movie though is the message. "A spoonful of sugar" is all about taking your situation in life and making the best out of it. I mean Bert is practically homeless and he is somehow still cheerful. It's a good lesson for all of us. 

Murder on the Orient Express: 

I guess this movie has the opposite theme of Mary Poppins: if you don't like what someone does to you, don't swallow it- murder them. 

I didn't expect to like this movie, for the same reason that Ronnie is currently watching the new Sherlock Holmes and I'm not really paying attention. I don't watch movies to try and figure out mysteries. I watch movies to enjoy them. 

However Murder on the Orient Express was much easier to follow than expected. Though the "clues" were presented to us throughout the movie and maybe some people could have picked up on it, they were also repeated again at the end as Detective Poirot is figuring them out. 

Another thing I don't enjoy in movies like this is that there are too many characters. However the characters all had fairly distinct identities and I was able to tell most of them apart.

I hate to write any more and spoil the ending- since the ending is the most important part in this kind of movie. So I won't. All I'll say is that if mystery is your thing, I'd imagine this is as good as it gets.